A visual essay on the esoteric and sacred form known
as the Tree of Life or the Tree of Lights. All of these
are merely toys of seeking. They should lead far beyond their structures,
into direct experience.
:::
Though our languages and the ways we are scripted to assemble
knowledge are linear-accretive — as are our stories
— this ‘way of assembling’ is not ‘the only
way’. Nor is it the foremost, or best of ways.
There are modes of ‘assembling’ language, action, knowledge,
emotion — and thought — whose foundation is ‘more
alike’ with the foundation of all that is, and thus more alike
with us. They emerge as the ‘now’ through and from all
positions of beginning, and also through and from all positions
of ending.
It is thus that the Tree of Life was, is, and shall be established.
Those who live or travel beyond the mortal veils bring back toys
with which to teach us of our sources and our true nature —
the Tree of Life is such a toy, different for each who learns of
or encounters it — yet complete as a remembrance of an impossible
form of accessible ‘learning-travel’ which is the birthright
of all human beings.
The ‘now’ which we experience as emerging linearly
is a ‘uniquely localized sum’ of all positions of time
and sentience, uniquely expressed in many simultaneous scales and
‘speeds’ as self and environment.
The linearity we experience is a result of our
positions of relation and perspective, and not of the facts
or features of any of the circumstances we encounter or metaphy
as temporally locked.
The Tree was not established in the mereness of
linear time, place, or matter, but instead in all (and more
(with(in) less) of time, place and matter — simultaneously.
There were no ‘phases’ as we understand them. Instead,
each ‘phase’ arose simultaneously. Each ‘phase’
is ‘still arising’.
thus is the eternal (arising/departing) movement
— in, about, and amongst the tree(s) of lights...
:::
A useful statement of an ancient toy:
-1 = -2 : -1 = -1 : -1 = 0
0 = -1 : 0 = 0 : 0 = 1
1= 0 : 1 = 1 : 1 = 2
:::
In the instant at the beginning(s) there
were no words.
Words require time, and there was no time.
There was no ‘light’ nor ‘star’.
There was no ‘tree’, nor kingdom.
:::
In the beginning there was ‘a field’ of
unmetaphyable potential— void to our knowing, yet alive in
a dimension we have no name for which is far ‘bigger in its
smallness’ than all of the organismal cosmos. Perhaps this
formative stillness was the sentient potential inherent in all context
— or perhaps naught — regardless, it was uniquely attractive.
And there ‘was unMovement’ with(in) — a ‘acyclical
quickening’ that would momentarily emerge (in another dimension
entirely) as ‘generative song’.
These are ‘the living waters’.
There is no image for it in this series — the
living waters is/isNot before.
A Child once said:
“If you ‘see her’, She is naught.
When She ‘is hidden from you’, ‘nothing is not
Her’.”
o:O:o
The One who a-rose in the Living Waters is ‘the
point’ of our essay. This One is the ‘source’
of a celestial (and psybiocognitive) tree — that is ‘raised
from the high terrains’ to ‘take root in the Earth’
and her many scales and assemblies (hosts) of children.
They (who are) are a ‘family’ who are
also One — in the same way our individually unique member-limbs
form a similar shape-metaphor: ‘my body’.
:::
With ‘the arisal of the suitor’, the Living Waters were
penetrated — in the (un)dimension which is the
progenitor of dimensions. The ‘penetration’ is a
quickening with(in) the living waters, as much as it is the
piercing of that-which-is-naught by that-which-is, was and is to
be.
The ‘suitor’ was/is/shall be self-engendering
with(in) the living waters — the first moment of ‘self-reference’
— and thus ‘the father’ is also ‘the
child’. Whereas the Living Waters is pure, udifferentiated
potential — total similarity — the ‘suitor’
was the first scalar and self-referencing emergence (with(in) the
Living Waters) of singularity. A being, of making new ways
of distinguishing which themselves grow magically ‘more unified’
even as they became more unique and distinct — in phase leaps
of impossible velocity.
An infinite point. Separate, first — and then
unseparate in a very unique (and expanding) set of ways. This ‘infinite
point’ was infinite in all possible dimensions, and transpresent
— before time.
The primary activity of the ‘suitor-child’
is ‘to become more singular’, by ‘self-reference’.
To accomplish this the suitor dives into itself, into the waters
— such that it ‘divides’, while its size
is halved with each leap, and each leap occurs half-again faster
than the last leap.
This results in the opposite effect than what we might
expect from dimensions we are familiar with — while dividing
and growing smaller, faster a sort of magical explosion is set up.
This kind of explosion ‘blows things together’ while
explosively multiplying and diversifying new reflective elements
and dimensions of relation.
This ‘smallification’ or compression has nothing
to do with our ideas of size. It is, due to its strange dimensionality...hyperpoetic
in character — and it results, primarily, in generation.
It is ‘the size’ of creation — which
is the size of a celestial dance of movement, rather than
a thing.
The activity of the singularity envitalizes
all positions and moments with(in) the Living Waters — uniquely
— and this process gains velocity in exponentially scalar
leaps which render the whole process ‘much more than merely
explosive’ in mere picoseconds after the initial penetration.
This causes the Living Waters to ‘grow’,
more diverse and complex in response to the ‘dance’
of the ‘inward-diving’ singularity at ‘the core
of what is not’.
All future manifestation of any sort whatever will
recapitulate this, as it is the first emergence, and the first penetration,
and the first union, the first motion, and the first guide of separation.
:::
The ‘ox’ of the aleph, emergent in protoform.
With(in) relation to the dance of the singularity,
the character of the living waters is transeternally altered.
A membrane emerges as the result of the interplay between the waters
and the child.
‘The Mother (who is hersElf a child) adores
the fatherChild.’
They begin to ‘play games together’, and
the playing changes everything.
:::
The Ox is ‘chasing its tail’.
The change in the living waters is re-reflectively
included in dance of the childSingularity, and this results
in a coordinated birth — a newPlace engendered by the unity
of the newly polarizing sourceBeing. This is an exponentially evolving
‘song of adoration’ between the waters, and the One.
Each instant is generative of new dimensions of relation, change,
creation, and ‘birth’.
This is the ‘third domain’ which is neither
the Mother or the Son, but instead ‘the assemblies of the
progenies of their union’.
What was before present in potential is now established.
This phase corresponds to the arisal of the complex
‘self’ — for example, in the human infant. The
‘point’ or child can now ‘know as I’, and
it can ‘simulate I from without’ (others seeing
I seeing), and it can ‘see I reflected’ (in the living
waters / mother). Similarly, the Mother has accrued a new perspective
‘she can see herself’ though the ‘eyes of her
child’. Universes of co-simulative relation arise as the result
of the most minute of possible gestures — just as in our world,
in the dimension we call emotion.
This is a phase of the emergence of the realm of Atzilah, which
is the primordial template not only for our universe, but also
for our metaphors, languages, and ways of knowing (our toys
of cognitive relation).
This is the seed before ‘word’, from which the child
‘word’ will later emerge.
3 with(in) 1
:::
Again, these ‘new changes’ are ‘re-included’
— and thus ‘magnified’ in all extant forms and
inclusions. So powerful is this re-inclusion (self-reference) that
an entirely new dimension emerges with(in) the unityBeing,
the singularity, and the living waters. This is not ‘growth’
as we understand it, but instead ‘scalar co-emergence’
— the Mother and fatherChild in re-flect ion.
This is the source-kingdom or ‘realm’
of that which humans encircle with the idea of ‘knowledge’.
It is the ‘shiny’, and shell-like ‘product of
a reflection’ in an inward mirror which arises in the cognitive
unity (which is a diversity) of the mother and child ‘and
their relations of seeing through each other’
In poetic arithmetic we might say ‘1 Mother
(sees herself, her child, and herself though her child) + 1 Child
(sees himself, his mother, and himself through his mother). = 2
(plus a mirror). This ‘mirror’ has an ‘infolding
surface’ and is not ‘an object’, but instead a
sentient organ of celestial re flec T i on.
It is useful to notice here that the Mother, being
older, ‘gains the mirror of her child’ complexly, while
the child is still gaining identity due to its ‘newness’.
Thus the mother ‘has know - l - edge’ before the child.
This is the precursor to the female being ‘the first to eat
of the tree of knowledge’, and is not a matter of error —
so much as it is re-flect - i - on. Literally ‘I reflected
upon you, re-entrant into me’ — before ye’.
o:O:o
There is an ‘unsomething’ in the center
of the second emanation. Sometimes it is ‘called a name’
(Daath, in English) and other times this place and name are separated
out from the Tree. This unplaceThing is not ‘formally’
a constituent of the Sephiroth (the ‘living jewel-kingdoms
of light emerging from the tree’), perhaps in part because
it is instead foundationally present as a precursor with(in) each
Sephira.
In the center of the new mirror, there is an inverse singularity.
We might call this ‘a specificity’ — a ‘sort
of cognitive or spiritual whirlpool’ that is the ‘edge’
in know - l - edge (which might be said to mean ‘to know the
edge, where illumination departs entirely into its opposite’).
This is the ‘generality’ turned to its polarity —
specificity. It is the ‘source-shape-meaning root’ of
the things we call words, terms, and logics of assembly.
It is the celestial precursor of fear, and of separation,
perhaps even the stuff humans speak of as ‘memory’.
Though ours is akin to a product of this reflective mirror, there
is a far more amazing and useful sort which we on Earth have rarely
had the courage to believe in or explore. When we prefer the reflections
in their frozen forms to the liquid truth of biocognitive memory,
we make the error that led to the problems in Genesis with the Fruit:
We trade a smaller token, for something much vaster
which we already possess, then the token claims the connectivity
transports we used to use all the time, before we had a rather dull
— but shiny — ‘copy’.
[mark of text in process]
On the other side of the strange mirror, the first
physical manifestation arises. This is the birth of the universe
of form, time, and space — which is a transentient reflection
of the source-dimension ‘across the gap’. Universally,
this represents the impregnation of the Living Waters ‘over
here’ [spaceTime] with the transentient ‘movement’
of the now-established unityBeing. Not only is there a new child
of the celestial marriage, but a new universe of ever-expanding
ways, sizes, and speeds of childMaking.
And in the children, the sources are alive.
Perhaps this represents the states before the formation
of stars, when the primary scales of collective organization in
our universe were protogalactic, or even more fundamental.
Locally, [in near-Earth terms] this phase would represent
a place before the formation of Sol, Luna and Terra — as their
formative precursors complexify in the Living Waters of timespace.
Notice that with each phase of emanation, a ‘re-reflective
benefit’ accrues in the dimension of the original marriage.
As each new form and scale of reflective emanation is established
as progeny, the original garden and the unityBeing are gloriously
magnified. This cycle of emanation-and-feedback creates an explosive
from of transentient momentum-building game, both here and in the
Garden of its source. This is the One who is many, learning and
growing — explosively.
The paths of communion form a crystal.
The Angels rule in all the angles
...and the points in the crystal are one.
The crystal is a shield of light unto the innocent.
And a dragon unto those who know it not.
The Names and Gematria of the Sepheroth
The Numbers, and order of the Sephira
The Tree of Life
The First Realm, Atzilah
The Second Realm, Beriah
The Third Realm, Yetzirah
The Fourth Realm, Assiah.
The realm of stars of many colors.
Our realm.
Emanation of Trees from Atzilah-In
4 Trees in One; Assiah-Inward
4 Trees in One; Atzilah-Inward
:::
In matters related to the Tree, and the ancient study
of the toys of contact with god, this
Rabbi’s work accords to large extent with the things toyMaker
taught me. Though toyMaker did not single out a specific human ‘spiritual
tradition’ as perfect or correct — the traditions of the
kabbalistic rabbis, the gnostics, and the pythagorans each conserve
unique likenesses. Of those three, the most generally accurate according
to my own experience, are the mystical hebraic traditions conserved
by the sages and teachers who still reveal them to us. Particularly
as regards Chassidus
— the pursuit of direct experiential unity with G—d.
Many kind thanks to the significant and auspicious
revelations of Fr. Achad in his enlightening (unBook)
